Chasing the light sterile neutrino: status of the STEREO experiment

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The standard three-family neutrino oscillation model is challenged by a number of observations,
such as the reactor antineutrino anomaly (RAA), that can be explained by the existence of sterile
neutrinos at the eV mass scale. The RAA can be tested by comparing antineutrino energy spectra
at different distances from a reactor core, in order to observe possible distortions due to shortbaseline
oscillations toward sterile neutrinos. After a review of the upcoming experiments and
and techniques that are being developed, I will focus on the STEREO experiment. STEREO
detects antineutrinos produced in the ILL research reactor via their inverse beta decay
interactions in the liquid scintillator of its 6 identical target cells. Since the start of its activity in
November 2016, STEREO has collected data from a full reactor cycle. If no evidence of sterile
neutrinos after the full statistics of 6 cycles is gathered, STEREO expect to fully exclude the
RAA allowed region.